Chapter 10
TEN
MISTAKES WERE MADE
Gabe
The second I saw the crazed smile flash across her beautiful face, I knew I was fucked.
I’ve survived convoys through the middle east. I’ve been shot at, bombed, stabbed while negotiating passage on a camel, you name it, I’ve seen it.
I was an adrenaline junkie when I was young, but that was before I knew what it was like to lose what matters most. Now, everything is a calculated risk.
I’d happily take the dangerous jobs if it meant my boys got home safely to their girlfriends, wives, and mamas if they weren’t every bit as crazy as I was at that age.
All of that is nothing compared to being helpless in a racecar with a madwoman—one who is hell bent on seeing me piss my pants so that she can pull one over on me and make me believe that she’s as safe as can be on this track.
I have to admit, she’s both right and wildly wrong.
She’s probably safest in her car if we check it every day to ensure that it hasn’t been tampered with. She doesn’t own the facility, so we’ll have to set up some kind of surveillance around the garage and track or coordinate with the track security to make sure things stay tight.
I’m sure the boys are scouting good spots to watch from while she takes these turns at breakneck speeds. I’ll check them, too, when my legs can work again.
Where she’s wrong is because if I’m watching from up above and she’s down on the track, I can’t cover her with my body if she’s in a bad spot.
I can’t pull her to safety, and that makes me the most nervous.
When she’s driving, we’ll have to have someone else in overwatch while I’m on the ground near her.
I get it, this is her job and she has to be able to do it. I want to punch her father for making her compete for what he was given just because she’s a girl. That’s bullshit.
If Macy and I had ever had a daughter, I’d have treated her like I would the boys.
Actually, that’s a lie. I’d want to spoil and protect her just like Adrienne’s dad has.
But when she handed me my ass somewhere, I’d concede that any child who came from my genetic code, be it male or female, would be a badass and I wouldn’t stop her.
I hear her happy laugh as Adrienne takes another turn and shifts gears, squealing along with the tires as she pulls into the shoulder so that we can exit the track.
Adrenaline coursing through my body doesn’t usually bother me but there’s something about being in this tiny fucking car with this gorgeous woman as she pulls off her helmet and shakes out her hair, sending all of the blood beating in my still functioning heart down to my still very alive cock.
It’s alarming to realize my body still works after my wife died. My heart clenches at the thought of being with a woman who’s not her… but this woman beside me, she’d love. I have a feeling that I could, too, if I gave into this attraction.
But then I remember the way she laughed as she accelerated into that last turn, and I know that someday, I’d lose her.
Maybe not the slow agonizing way that I lost Macy, but I’d lose her all the same, and it’s only by the grace of God, I survived that kind of loss once.
I know without a doubt that I wouldn’t make it a second time.
As I take her in—the sweat on her skin, the smile on her face—I’m not sure I have a choice.
Maybe it’s inevitable.
Maybe I never had a choice at all.
Maybe I should have laid down and died with my wife because living might be more than I can handle.